


you stole my heart (but i broke yours)

by orphan_account



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Death, Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Roses, Sakura (Cherry Blossoms)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 18:23:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18057686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: [hanahaki]noun1. an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs up flower petals





	you stole my heart (but i broke yours)

**Author's Note:**

> dear god slay me

There’s a rule to time, just as there’s a rule to everything. You never have enough. One mistake, and it slips through your fingers like sand in a hourglass, and you’re powerless to stop it.

You have to make the most of it before it runs out. Before Hanahaki-byou steals the time straight from your lungs.

It’s poetic, Yugo thinks. The price of love is death.

Once, a long time ago, he’d heard of a place outside of town, just a whisper of conversation he’d caught as he passed by a group of school girls. A meadow filled with flowers, alive and well, though no one tends to it. They say that victims of Hanahaki-byou are buried there, and the flowers lay claim on them, harvesting them to stay alive. 

He wonders if he’ll be buried there too, some day.

 

 

At the very back of his garage, there’s a small vacant space. He never had a use for it before, but now whenever thorns tear at his throat and he coughs up pink cherry blossoms, he plants them there.

They are, after all, the product of his love.

Unlike most people who don’t even know who they fell for, Yugo knows exactly who. He’s dreamt of him every night, pining for him every moment of everyday but never mustering enough courage to ask him out. Yugo laughs, and it’s bitter. In a way, this is punishment, but he doesn’t give in. He’s content with admiring Yuri from afar.

That night he woke in a cold sweat, and stumbled to the bathroom, hacking and coughing until a purple rose fell from his lips.

He stared at it in horror and wonder, kneeling there on the tile until his legs hurt. 

 

 

Although everyone is worried, no one comes to his house to check in on him, except for Rin. She comes over one night, saying how nobody has seen him for weeks and everyone was worried. She picks up his phone and shows him the missed calls from Yuya, missed texts from Yuzu, Ruri and Yuto and so many more people but all Yugo can see is the one notification at the bottom that’s from Yuri and how he can feel another onslaught of flowers clawing their way up his throat.

He smiles at Rin as she lectures him about making her worry, listening but also trying to swallow down the petals in his mouth but they _keep_ _coming_. 

“You don’t answer calls or texts, you look like hell, and—oh my god!”

He’s kneeling on the ground, cherry blossoms and roses cupped in his hands and petals littering the floor. There’s a look of horror on Rin’s face as she softly whispers, “How long?”

Yugo smiles, blood stained lips and all and mumbles through the pain in his throat. “Only three months.”

She lowers herself to ground, taking his hands and letting the flowers drop to the ground. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice is shaky, just loud enough for Yugo to hear her.

Gently, she pulls Yugo into her arms, letting his head drop onto her shoulder as the tears start.

 

 

Rin forces him to go with her to Starbucks the next morning, saying that it’ll only get worse if he doesn’t get some sunlight on his skin (it won’t, but he misses her, so he goes). She pulls out a scarf from his closet and wraps it around his neck, adjusting it so it covers his mouth incase any stray petals make an appearance.

Then, they’re out the door, laughing and chatting like they used to, messing around like they did when they were kids. People stare, but they ignore them. Rin’s smile is infectious, and he finds himself feeling happy for the first time in a while.

When they get there, Yugo pulls the door open for her, bowing as she rolls her eyes and laughs. He steps inside and suddenly his throat is too tight and the thorns are tearing at his throat again and he doesn’t know why until his eyes land on Yuri sitting in the corner.

He forces the flowers down, eyes watering from the pain and heads straight for the bathroom while Rin stares in confusion.

Blood drips from his mouth, staining roses and cherry blossoms as he wheezes, trying to catch his breath. He’s crying again, the tears stinging his face, the scarf bundled in his lap. Someone comes in, and he hears a soft gasp as they hurry back out and he remembers that he forgot to shut the stall door. The pain in his throat is still there, but it feels numb compared to every other time. 

He doesn’t move for a while, and the tears stop, but he doesn’t think he could go back out there and face Yuri. Slowly, his pushes himself up, using the wall to balance himself. He wraps the scarf around his neck again, using toilet paper to wipe away the blood and saliva on his lips and texts Rin to meet him outside. 

Nobody stares as he walks back out, unaware that he just regurgitated flowers in the room right next to them. He wishes he was one of them, perfectly normal and happy, but fate is cruel and he is running out of time to live. Rin is waiting for him outside, a worried expression on her face and an iced coffee in her hand.

He feels eyes on him as he heads for the door, and sneaks a glance toward Yuri to see that he’s looking at him, expression soft. He gulps and heads back out the door before he does anything stupid.

 

 

Over the next month, he stays in his house, and doesn’t even let Rin visit. He spends most of his time on his bed, curled up in the blankets and doing nothing. He’s still coughing up flowers, but he notices that they seem to be less frequent now and the searing pain that comes with them has faded slightly. There are no droplets of blood on the flowers either, like his throat has healed and the rose’s thorns have decided to take mercy on him.

He texts Rin the news, and she’s ecstatic, saying that she’s coming over right away and that he can’t stop her. He laughs, and lets her hug him when he opens the door.

 

 

It’s a miracle, he thinks, but he doesn’t know why the flowers in his lungs have slowed. It doesn’t hurt as much to cough out flowers anymore, and the next time Rin comes to visit, the only things that leave his mouth are petals, never fully formed roses or cherry blossoms.

Rin thinks he’s fallen out of love, but he knows he still loves Yuri, he knows his feelings are unchanged. Hanahaki-byou doesn’t just disappear.

Yugo is grateful though. He can breathe again, he can go over to Rin’s house without having to worry about hiding the flowers from her girlfriend, Ruri. He can have sleepovers at Yuya’s place and stay up till 3am watching Disney with him and Yuto and he can go shopping with Yuzu when Serena’s too tired to go with her.

By the sixth month, the flowers in his lungs have cleared, but Rin tells him to go to a doctor to check. He does, and he’s relieved because now he’s offically free from the disease that made him miserable for the past six months.

He doesn’t notice that Yuri has disappeared.

 

 

It’s 1pm the next day, when everyone is together except for Yuri and Serena that he receives the text. Yuya is watching a movie in the living room with everyone else, and Macfield is doing some stupid card trick to try and convince Kurosaki that magic is real on the couch behind them. Yugo’s in the kitchen, making more popcorn when his phone pings. He puts down the bowl, and opens the message from Serena. 

His heart drops.

 

 

 _Serena_  
_Have you heard?_

Yugo  
No? What’s going on?

 _Serena_  
_Yuri is dead. I went to his house this morning and used a spare key to get in when he wouldn’t answer. They said it was Hanahaki-byou. I can’t believe he never told anyone. The flowers were blue chrysanthemums, if you were wondering._

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know why i wrote this


End file.
